Nihilists - Ronald Hingley

 NIHILISTS - RONALD HINGLEY

There surely comes a time in every man's life when he must ask himself: 'Am I a Nihilist?' Before being able to fully answer such a question, however, first and foremost he must understand what is exactly meant by the term? Nowadays, of course, most people would just turn to the Internet so let's do that shall we?

Nihilism: nihilism. (ˈnaɪɪˌlɪzəm) n. 1. a complete denial of all established authority and institutions. 2. (Philosophy) philosophy an extreme form of scepticism that systematically rejects all values, belief in existence, the possibility of communication, etc.

It is, however, sometimes better to turn to a book which leads us to Nihilists, written by Ronald Hingley, and to give its full subtitle: Russian Radicals and Revolutionaries in the Reign of Alexander II (1855-81).

What is clear from the very start of Hingley's book is that he himself is no fan of revolutionary violence as is pronounced by the citation of a quote from Joseph Conrad in the foreword that declares: 'The ferocity and imbecility of an autocratic rule rejecting all legality and in fact basing itself upon complete moral anarchism provokes the no less imbecile and atrocious answer of a purely Utopian revolutionism encompassing destruction by the first means to hand, in the strange conviction that a fundamental change of hearts must follow the downfall of any given human institutions. These people are unable to see that all they can effect is merely a change of names'.

This point of view, however, is very debatable. As proven by history, if Hitler, for example, had been successfully assassinated (as some attempted to do) the course of the Second World War would have been altered immediately. If Scottish anarchist Stewart Christie had successfully assassinated Franco the course of Spanish history would have altered irrevocably. The same goes for the IRA and their attempted assassination of Margaret Thatcher. And so on and so forth. So to say that the 'downfall of any given institution' does not lead to 'a fundamental change of hearts' is arguably wrong, even if that change of hearts goes the complete opposite way to what was intended and repression is ratcheted up and hearts made even colder - it's still a fundamental change.

Hingley, who was a Fellow of St Anthony's College, Oxford and University Lecturer in Russian, goes on to say: 'Deriving as it does from Latin 'nihil', the name Nihilist seems to imply a belief either in nothing at all or in destruction for its own sake. In fact, Nihilists were not men of little or no faith. Far from it: they mostly believed passionately in something. They preached destruction often enough, but chiefly as a means to an end'.

Interestingly, Hingley identifies their earlier incarnation as a proto-type of those who would later be known as 'Bohemians'. They were a subculture coming with their own fashion sense and ethics, only the fact of them missing a suitable musical soundtrack preventing them from being the equivalent of modern day punks and hippies.

The men would sport huge beards and long hair, while the girls would have their hair bobbed and renounced such frivolities as combs. Both favoured blue-tinted spectacles and high boots. Other common features were a heavy walking stick and a rug flung over the shoulders. They were great cigarette smokers and drinkers of tea and by on-lookers were claimed to be dirty, with chewed fingernails and an untidy and unwashed appearance. It could almost be a description of a free festival audience sans drugs.

The Nihilists' concerns at the start focussed upon what back then in the 1800s was called the 'woman problem', by which they meant female emancipation. It wasn't votes for women they were after, however, because most men didn't even have the vote themselves nor was it anything to do with property rights. No, the main issues were careers and sexual freedom.

Promoted by a writer called Chernyshevsky and his book What Is to Be Done?, Russian feminism was embraced by a significant number of Russian women infuriated at being denied a profession and whose lives were dominated by the dictates of men who wished women to be only wives and mothers.

Vera Figner (1852-1942), the grand old lady of Nihilism

With a little further effort combined with the influence of other writers, Nihilist theory developed into revolutionary political theory advocating emancipation of the peasants and the overthrow of the Tsar. With the arrival of Sergey Nechayev and the publication of his notorious Catechism Of A Revolutionary this then escalated to the advocacy of assassination, merciless destruction and Tsaricide.

After a number of failed attempts the Nihilists did eventually succeed in killing the Emperor only for the perpetrators to be duly rounded-up and summarily executed. The only one to evade capture being Vera Frigner, who in later life would become known as the grand old lady of Nihilism.

With the execution of these most militant of Nihilists so too according to Hingley came to an end the life of the Nihilist movement of that period, subsequently entering the rich annals of Russian history. With the assassination of Emperor Alexander II the unstoppable wheels of revolution, however, were put into motion leading eventually to the storming of the Winter Palace and the Great Russian Revolution of 1917. For better or for worse.

So to go back to and in answer to the original question as in 'Am I a Nihilist?' the answer is that in one way or another and to a certain degree we probably all are. As principal theorist of the Situationists Raoul Vaneigem once declared: 'Nihilists, one more effort if we are to be revolutionaries'...

John Serpico